The name “Minji” only exists 

in black ink, printed on my childhood passport 

buried in the depths of my parents’ closet. 

I was proud of my English name, 

a name given to me by my mother who adored Julia Roberts. 

On every paper at school, I would leave a smudge 

on the top right corner

as I rewrote my name until each and every letter was sharp and clean. 

Everyone could pronounce it, everyone could write it, 

and I was proud of that

but my sister wasn’t. 

Her Korean name stands in confidence next to her English name: 

Yeonji. 

She was given a new name in 

each yearbook, a mix of the American alphabets to match its phonetics, 

but she preferred it that way. 

She was proud of her 

Korean name that made people ask her for its spelling, 

for her to pronounce it multiple times. 

Yeonji stood for a tower of achievement, 

and with a name like that, she didn’t want to bury it away.